A Senjafuda Joke. (I’m a nerd.)

Want to be on the inside of a very inside joke?

I have a talk about senjafuda, paper seals marked with one’s name or pseudonym pasted at shrines and temples, originally as an act of devotion. The pasting later also became an act of self-promotion or as a contest against priests or other pasters (who can get their name to the highest point on the temple ceiling? and so on), and more stylish senjafuda were created specifically for trading and collecting.

In the 1700s, a samurai named Hagino Kinai Nobutoshi went on pilgrimage on behalf of his lord’s brother, stricken with smallpox. He famously pasted many senjafuda at shrines and temples, legitimizing and popularizing the practice as a person of rank doing this in his official capacity.

His daimei (pseudonym) was Kyūkoku Tengu Kōhei. The “tengu” is written not as 天狗 (the mountain-dwelling yōkai) but as 天愚 (“Heaven’s Fool”). Still, the pun was obvious, as evident in this example showing a long-nosed tengu drawn with the name’s other written characters.

In Only The Dead Face North, I’ve introduced a tengu character called Kyūkoku Kōhei. Talk about an obscure in-joke; the number of readers who would get that joke is maybe 2, counting me.

And now you too.